WRITING

God does not dwell in nightclub queues. Kadeem has learned this.

He is always wary of Pandora’s at 5am, when her box is opened and her many evils spill into the street to form a taxi line. But there are fares to be earned from those whose fingers are too addled for rideshare apps on phones that record the rapture of their evenings.

He prefers to drive the young girls on teetering heels whose masks have slipped, though their improbable eyelashes remain. They are lambs at a time when wolves prowl, and he must be their shepherd.

He pulls alongside a girl swaying in a miniskirt who crumples into the backseat. Her acid perfume fills the cab as she searches fleetingly for someone who is not there, then closes the door.

‘Where can I take you?’

‘Murray Road, Preston.’ Her words are thickened, and her eyes do not see him.

Kadeem nods. He knows this road.

He drives and she stares at the space between them. When next he checks the rear-view mirror, her face is lit by the glow of her phone and she is crying. She smears mascara into mud puddles with the back of her hand.

‘I am sorry you are sad,’ Kadeem says softly. He does not have to speak but knows God would want it.

She regards him now.

‘My boyfriend… he just left me there.’

Through the pre-dawn streets of Melbourne’s north, Kadeem listens to the many instances of commitment ambivalence on the part of Jarrod until they arrive at Murray Road, Preston. As the girl settles her fare, he says:

‘Love one another, but make not a bond of love:

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.’

She ponders this as she opens the door.

‘I feel like you stole that off Instagram.’

‘Or maybe Instagram stole it from someone else?’

The girl smiles. ‘Thank you.’ She turns and waves, disappearing before dawn reminds her she lives in grey brick flats on a busy road next to a service station.

His father was wrong when he said studying literature would be of no use to anyone. Kadeem wishes he could tell him that.

The lavish words of Gibran have soothed the burning of many hearts, mostly his own, and although Kadeem cannot claim him as a countryman, he found harbour sleeping on the stones of his homeland. This had saved his life.

 

Here, in this new country of second chances, students of medicine empty bedpans in nursing homes; engineers park cars and scientists remove chewing gum from shopping centre floors.

Kadeem had chosen well. Literature, like taxi driving, provides direction, especially at night when terrors can erupt from the dark and quiet. This is his time to offer safe passage, just as he has been offered.

He can think of no other reason God has spared him. It is his second chance. Or his atonement. God is good. He must not allow himself to think otherwise.

 

The rising sun bleeds crimson over the Westgate Freeway.

Dawn signals his shift changeover with Hassan but it is Thursday, pension day, and Kadeem has his regular booking to collect Allan Johnston from outside Aldi at Keilor West.

Allan catches the first bus to get his groceries before the crowds, but he says it’s beyond him to carry his bags home on the bus anymore.

Kadeem likes to arrive early just to see the look on Allan’s face when he finds his taxi waiting for him next to the trolley return. It reminds Kadeem there is always joy to be found, even outside Aldi.

Allan greets him as always: ‘Mate, you’re a bloody lifesaver.’

Kadeem bows. ‘Not yet, Allan. I am still learning to swim.’ Kadeem thinks this is a good Australian joke.

Kadeem takes Allan’s trolley, loads his bags into the boot, collects the two dollars from the trolley coin slot and helps Allan lift his weary legs into the front seat.

Allan talks about the weather, how much things cost and how nice it is to sit in a warm car. Then he talks about the weather, how much things cost and how nice it is to sit in a warm car. Allan doesn’t notice and Kadeem doesn’t mind. He likes the way Allan talks to him like an old friend. He doesn’t have these anymore.

They pull into Allan’s driveway and Kadeem lifts Allan under the arms and guides him up the steps. Allan has forgotten to lock the door again so Kadeem pushes it open and sits Allan onto his kitchen chair.

Kadeem goes back for the bags and unpacks Allan’s groceries onto the kitchen bench. He puts the cold things into the fridge and arranges the rest in a neat line. He used to put them in the cupboard but Allan can forget they are there if he doesn’t see them.

‘Stay for some tucker, mate?’ Allan says.

‘That would be lovely,’ Kadeem replies.

Allan chooses a tin of tomato soup and Kadeem warms it over the gas stove. They eat together at the table in Allan’s old kitchen where he’s stuffed newspaper into all the cracks to keep it warm in winter.

Allan tells his favourite story of how he met his wife Bonnie at a dance in a country hall. She wore a rose-pink dress that swirled when she turned and they both went for the strawberry and cream cake at supper. That was when he knew she was the girl for him.

Allan forgets many things, but he remembers everything about Bonnie. He remembers how they used to plant their spring garden together. He wanted more veggies; she wanted more flowers. Now every time he sees a bloody daffodil, he thinks of her.

One day Kadeem will tell Allan about his wife, but he cannot speak of her yet. He wishes he could remember what colour she was wearing when they met. And that it was a flower that made him think of her.

Allan has toast with his soup but Kadeem never does because he knows Allan’s loaf of bread has to last the week. They always share a teabag though.

When they raise their crackled china cups, Kadeem says:

‘In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures

For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.’

‘Too right, Shakespeare,’ Allan says. They clink their cups and drink their weak tea. It is enough that they are there together.

 

There is a street in South Yarra Kadeem cannot enter. Perhaps it is the white lines of the apartments, or the date palms, or the sweep of the road, but it sets his heart hurtling, squeezing his chest until he struggles for breath and thinks he will surely die.

He does not take any jobs in South Yarra in case he drives down this street by accident.

It is in avoiding South Yarra on a winter’s night Kadeem sees a woman and a child running for his taxi as though they will leap in front of it.

Some white electricity detonates inside him, melting time and place, and he understands God’s message: the ghosts you hide from will find you anyway.

He pulls to the kerb and the woman bundles a small boy into the back before throwing herself after him. They cower on the floor and Kadeem pulls away quickly. The woman’s heart is hurtling. This he understands.

‘You are safe,’ he says.

The last time he said this, he was wrong. But now he is here, in the land of second chances.

The woman is looking for a place. She can’t remember the name, or even where it is, but Kadeem knows a place. He calls it the House of Women and he understands he must never take any man to this place, even if they know the address.

It is a bitter night and the woman and her child are wearing pyjamas. Kadeem passes his coat over the seat and turns up the heater. As they drive into the quiet of the suburbs, Kadeem sings the song he once sang to his own little boy. It is low and sweet, even through tears.

When it’s clear they are sharing the road with no other cars, the woman and child rise from the floor and huddle together on the back seat, Kadeem’s coat draping across their shoulders.

The woman is lost somewhere. She closes her eyes to calm the racing in her head.

Kadeem watches the boy in the rear-view mirror as his song reaches its end. Neither of them wipes their tears and they draw the bravery of that from one another. As Kadeem begins another song, the boy settles into his mother’s arms and closes his eyes.

When they arrive at the house on the edge of the city, there is a yellow light above the door. It looks like any other house on a quiet street, except the light is always on.

Kadeem stops the car out front.

‘I’m sorry,’ the woman says. ‘I don’t have any money.’

Kadeem turns to her. He pulls out a slim fold of notes from his top pocket and puts them in her hands. ‘It is not much but take this.’

She clasps his hands for a moment and cries. She does not believe she deserves such kindness. This will be her lesson to learn; Kadeem senses this. The boy is stirring on her lap now the car is still.

Kadeem carries the child wrapped in his coat as the woman rings the doorbell. They wait to hear movement in the house.

The boy fits perfectly in his arms. The familiar smell of a small warm child sets his bones weeping but he stands despite them. 

‘What am I going to do?’ she whispers.

Kadeem knows this question, has asked it of God many times. But he also knows the answer:

‘You shall be free when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief,

But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.’

She laughs softly. ‘Seriously, what are you? An angel or something?’ 

The door opens and a large grandmotherly type who does not expect sleep takes the woman in her embrace.

When it is time for Kadeem to return the child who does not belong to him, he holds the boy’s small fingers briefly to his lips. The child permits the indulgence, as if understanding there is another small boy somewhere, or perhaps nowhere, this night. Whose fingers cannot be kissed.

It is then the book falls from Kadeem’s coat pocket. Its words were written long ago in the old world where no serious student of literature would ever admit its prose had sung to him.

It had appeared unexplained on the front seat of his taxi on a night with no moon when terrors stalked him on every street corner. He had cried like a child when he drank its words into his heart. It was the sign God had followed him to this new land.

The book is beloved and sacred and magical, but Kadeem understands what God intends. He picks it up and presses it to the boy’s chest. ‘One day you read this,’ he says.

As he walks back in the dark to his taxi in the land of second chances, he thanks God for his gift. He is naked, but perhaps one night closer to being unbound.